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(No Model.) SSheets-Sheet 1. H. A. DAVIS.

EVENING MECHANISM FOR MACHINES FOR OPENING, GARDING, AND

DRAWING FIBROUS SUBSTANCES.

No. 495,609. Patented Apr. 18, 1893.

WITNESSES- 4 INVENTDR @4104 99% ATTORNEY.-

(No Modl 3 Sheets-Sheet 2.

H. A. DAVIS. I EVENING MECHANISM FOR MACHINES FOR OPENING, GARDING, AND DRAWING FIBROUS SUBSTANCES.

No. 495,609. Patented Apr. 18, 1893.

1 Hana cor. mo'mumm. wssumurou. a c.

(No Model.)

3 Sheets-Sheet 3.

H. A. DAVIS. v EVENING MECHANISM FOR MACHINES FOR OPENING, OARDING, AND

DRAWING FIBROUS SUB STANGES.

No. 495.609. Patented Apr. 18, 1893.

///////4/ a E E d WITNESSES:

ATTORNEY.

rm: Ndmus PETERS 00., PNOTDJJTHOY, wsmno'mn. o. c.

UNiTEn STATES PATENT FIQE.

HENRY A. DAVIS, OF LOIVELL, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOR TO THE KIITSON MACHINE COMPANY, OF SAME PLACE.

EVENING MECHANISM FOR MACHINES FOR OPENING, CARDING, AND DRAWING FIBROUS SUBSTANCES.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 495,609, dated April 18, 1893.

I Application filed March '7 1891. Serial No. 384.069. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, HENRY A. DAVIS, acitizen of the United States, residing at Lowell, in the county of Middlesex and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, have invented a certain new and useful Improvementin Evening Mechanism for Machines for Opening, Carding, and Drawing Fibrous Substances, of which the following is a specification.

Evening mechanisms, as constructed for machinery for opening and preparing fibrous materials in laps that should be of uniform weight and thickness, have heretofore been made up of a combination of four principal members, viz: first, a sectional roll or a sectional plate gaging the thickness of material passing between each section of said divided roll or plate and the feed-roll of the machine; second, a scale -lever system reducing the average movement of the sections of the divided roll or plate to a single rod or lever; third, cone-drums and a cone-belt through which rotary motion is transmitted to the feed-rolls of the machine; and fourth, a beltshifting mechanism by which the motion of the scale-lever system traverses the cone-belt longitudinally on the cone-drums.

The objects of my invention are, first, to improve the arrangement of the cone-pulleys and to drive the same by a belt running at a uniform velocity and thereby to simplify the means of producing the required velocity at all the different points to which the belt may be shifted on the driven cone; second, to supply an efficient and sensitive device for engaging and disengaging a mechanism, receiving power from a source other than the scalelever-system, to move a belt upon the conedrum, Whenever the thickness of material entering the gaging device of the evener requires a change of speed to be made, and to stop the same when the proper speed for said thickness is attained.

To understand fully the nature of the first part of my invention, it is necessary briefly to consider the working of the cone-drumsheretofore used.

In machines for opening cotton, &c., the material is spread upon a feeding-apron, or a certain number of laps, usually four, are made to unroll upon a doubling apron, and the combined thickness of the four laps passed through the evening -device. Suppose that four revolutions per minute of the feed-roll will supply the proper quantity of material to produce a lap weighing twelve ounces per yard when forty-eight ounces per square yard are passing the evening-device and feed-roll, and that it is required to maintain this stand ard of twelve ounces per yard for finished lap, although the Weight per yard entering the machine may vary considerably. If the supply falls to thirty-six ounces per square yard,

it is evident that the speed of the feed-roll must be increased to five and one-third revolutions per minute, if to twenty-four ounces the speed of the feed-roll should be eight revo lutions per minute, and if the quantity supplied should bebut twelve ounces per square yard, the feed-roll should make sixteen revo- 7o Iutions per minute to keep the finished lap up to twelve ounces per yard. Now, as the difference between twelve and twenty-four, twentyfour and thirty-six, thirty-six and forty-eight is, in each case, twelve, the movement of the scale-lever system and the belt-shifting mechanism which is operated by the thickness of the material entering the evening-device, will traverse the cone-belt longitudinally the same number of inches when the velocity of the feed roll should be changed from four revolutions to five and one half revolutions per minute as when the velocity of the feedroll should change from eight revolutions to sixteen revolutions per minute. Ithas, therefore, been the practice to make the cone-drums or conical pulleys with curved faces, the driving cone concave with the steepest pitch at the large end and the driven cone convex with the steepest pitch at the small end of the cone, so that the diameters of the driving and driven cones are supposed to have the proper proportions at all points, to which the belt maybe shifted for producing the required velocity. In practice, however, this well-known device of the 5' two conicalpulleys with the belt so arranged as to shift over their varied diameters, is found to have many defects, the tendency of the belt to climb up to the highest parton the pulley rendering it necessary to have belt- I00 guides or shipper-forks at each drum and the alternate stretching of each edge of the belt and the unequal stretching of the substance composing the belt, render the belt difficult to be kept at the proper tension and soon wears it out. I have discovered that the said proper ratio of speed of the feed-rolls may be obtained with a drivencone having a straight taper, instead of a curved surface, provided that the driving-drum is of uniform diameter throughout. I therefore use a cylindrical driving-drum or pulley, passing a belt therefrom over a cylindrical idle-drum and partly around an idle-cone, which in size and shape is like the driven cone but tapering in the opposite direction, the axes of all said cylinders and cones being parallel with each other.

In considering the second object of my invention, I would say that in many cases, notably in measuring the stock entering or leaving a railway-head or drawingframe, the power derived from the measuring device is insufficient to move properly the belt-shifting mechanism and, therefore, other sources of power are used for that purpose, the powertransmitting devices being engaged and disengaged by a lightly moving device connected with the measuring apparatus, but, so far as I am aware, no devices of this kind have been applicable except to measuring devices which gage the work after the lap or sliver is made. In railway-heads, the trumpet by which the evening mechanism is operated is commonly placed in front of the drawing-rolls, so that a variation of the thickness of the sliver does not operate the evening-mechanism until after the drawing is completed, because the evening-mechanism is operated by a movement of the trumpet due to great-er or less friction of the sliver on the inner walls of the trumpet, such friction, of course, depending on the size of the sliver. It is apparent that an excessive thickness of the sliver reaching only from the trumpet to the front drawingrolls will swing the trumpet away from the rolls, increasing the speed of the front drawing-rolls and causing them to draw out the portion of the sliver between the rolls until the thick portion of the sliver having passed through the trumpet, the trumpet will be drawn backward beyond its normal position, owing to the following portion ofthe sliver beingtoo thin to hold the trumpetin its proper position, thereby reducing the speed of the front drawing-rolls and makinganother thick place in the sliver which will again operate the trumpet and the evening-mechanism. It is thus possible that the sliver, although of the normal weight and thickness throughout when entering the feed-rolls, except the one short portion first passing through the front trumpet, should be converted by the drawing-rolls and the evening mechanism into a sliver of abnormally thick portions alternating with abnormally thin portions. Any abnormal weight or thickness of the sliver will show in the yarn made therefrom and in the cloth woven from said yarn. What is above stated in regard to railway-heads, is true also of drawing-frames.

In the accompanying drawings, on three sheets, Figure 1 is a plan of the side of a machine for opening or preparing cotton or other fibrous materials and my improved eveningmechanism; Fig. 2, a front elevation of the same; Fig. 3, a section on the line 3 3 in Fig. 2; Fig. 4, a section on the line 4 4 in Fig. 2; Fig. 5, a plan of a part of the screw which carries the belt-guide or shipper-fork, said fork being omitted, the cam, provided with an internally-threaded hub or sleeve engaging an external screw on the shaft of the screw firstmentioned, the ratchet, fast on said shaft, the ratchet-guard, the ratchet-actuating pawls, the disk which carries said pawls, the crankdisk and a part of its shaft, the link, connecting said pawl-disk and crank-disk, the bell-crank lever which engages said cam, the stud, on which said lever turns, the weight which restores said lever to position and the back-lash weight; Fig. 6, a front elevation of the parts shown in Fig. 5, omitting the restoring weight; Fig. 7, a vertical central section on the line 7 '7 in Figs. 5 and 8, showing the crank-disk, a part of its shaft and connecting-link in front elevation; Fig. 8, an end elevation of the parts shown in Figs. 5-7; Fig. 9, a plan of the guard-plate, as it appears before being curved for attachment to its supporting-disk. Figs. 1012 show a modibelt-guide or shipper-fork being carried by a rack-bar, actuated by a sector of a gear to which is secured, concentrically therewith, a pinion which engages another rack, carried by a rod such as is used to connect a scalelever system with the belt-shifting mechanism, and also shows the same arrangement of beltcylinders and cones, as in Figs. 1-4, Fig.

10 being a plan and Fig. 11, a front elevation, and Fig. 12, a section on the line 12 12 in Fig. 11.

A, in all the figures where it appears, indicates a side or end of a machine for working cotton and other fibers; Ct at, brackets which support the shaft 1) of the driving-cylinder B, fast on said shaft. To the shaft band pulley B is communicated, by any usual means, a uniform rotary motion. In other brackets a a secured to the frame A,are journaled an idlecylindez B an idle-cone O and a driven cone 0, said idle-cylinder B and said cones having theira'xes parallel with each other and with the axis of the cylinder B and said cones being equal in size and shape but reversed with respect to each other. The belt D runs over the cylinders or pulleys B B and over the cones G O and said cones are set, with reference to said cylinders, in such a manner that when the belt is half way between the ends of the cones it has an equal contact surface on each of said cones. It follows that, whatever the position of the belt may be, the length of the belt-surface in contact; with one cone added to the length of the belt-surface in contact with the other cone will be a constant quantity and that the belt will always be equally strained. The shaft of the drivencone 0 may be provided with a worm c, to engage a worm-gear on the shaft of an evenerroll or other feed-roll, in the usual manner.

The belt-shifting mechanism, shown in Figs. 1-9, consists of a shipper-fork E, guided by a rod 2, arranged parallel with the axis of the cone 0 and rigidly secured in the brackets a? a which shipper-fork is caused to traverse by a screw F of coarse pitch, journaled in said brackets a a parallel with the guiderod e, said guide-rod e passing through a hole e in said fork E, said guide-fork E having a sleeve 8 which surrounds said screw and is, in effect, a nut engaging the thread f of said screw. I

A pulley G is given a constant rotary motion by a belt g from the shaft 1) and is rigidly secured to its shaft which turns in suitable bearings in a bracket a secured to the frame A. T the shaft g, concentrically therewith, is see ired a crank-disk or wristwheel g the crank or wrist g of which is connected by a link or pitman g to another crank it on the pawl-disk I-I, so that the rotation of the disk gives to the pawl-disk H a reciprocating-motion, said pawl-disk being loose on the shaft of the screw F. The disk II is provided with two studs h if, on which turn two oppositely-acting pawls h h, adapted to be thrown into engagement with a ratchetwheel f fast on the shaft of the screw F, by a spring 72. compressed between the outer arms of said pawls 7L3 71 as shown in Fig. 8. The simultaneous engagement of the pawls with the ratchet f is prevented by a guard I, the same being a strip of sheet-metal provided with rectangular openings it, as shown in Fig. 9, which represents the strip before being curved. The strip or ratchet-guard I is curved about and secured to a sleeve 1', fast on the hubj of the cam J, said cam and its hub being rotary on the shaft of the screw F and said guard I being arranged between the ratchet f and the pivots of the pawls 7L3 7L and the openings 1' 2" in said guard being farther apart than the engaging ends of said pawls, so that by turning said cam J eitherof said pawls may be caused to engage said ratchet and thereby rotate the screw F, in the desired direction to change the position of the belt upon the cone C.

The cam J is provided with an external screw-thread or cam-groovej', into which projects ananti-friction roll 70, journaled on a stud 7c, projecting from the nearly vertical upper arm k of a bell-crank lever K, pivoted on astud or bracket (0 projecting horizontally from the frame A, the free end of the lower horizontal arm is of said lever being jointed to a vertical rod L, such as usually connects the'scale-lever system with the belt-shifting devices, or, generally speaking, a rod adapted to be raised by an increase in the amount of the fibers passingthrough the gaging devices.

rocked and crowds the roll is to one side (to the right in Figs. 57) and partially rotates the cam J and guard I, the pitch of the cam groove being coarse, say about one in two inches, so as to bring the opening 'iunder the pawl h allowing said pawl to engage the 'When the rod L is so raised the lever K is ratchet f and rotate the screwF in the opposite direction from that in whichthe cam has just been partially rotated and causing the shipper-fork E to move toward the large end of the driven cone 0, that is, to the right in Figs. 1 and 2. The hub of the cam J is internally screw-threaded, at j to engage an external screw f on the shaft of the screw F, the screwf being about four threads to the inch while the pitch of the screw F is about one in four inches, although I wish it understood that I do not limit myself to these exact figures. The pitch of the screw f is so slight that the lateral movement of thecam J, due to the above described action of the bell-crank lever K may be disregarded but the rotation of the screw F causes the cam J and guard I to move in the same direction with the belt-shipping fork about one sixteenth as far as saidfork moves, that is, in

the case supposed, to theright in Figs. 1, 2, 5,

6 and 7, so that, a sufficient rotation of the screwF, say, one revolution, .if the vertical to their originalpositions andthereby stop the action of the pawl 7L3 and consequently the rotation of the screw, when the belt shipper E has traveled four inches toward the right and carried the belt to the proper place on the cone fora decrease in speed of the,

same, corresponding to that required by the scale-lever system in moving the vertical arm of the bell-crank lever one quarter of an inch to the right. A similar action takes place, when, by reason of a less thickness of material entering, the evening-device moves the vertical arm of the bell-crank lever to the left, the pawl 71 then being brought into action and stopped in the same. manner, when the belt has been carried far enough to the left to increase the speed of the driven cone to the proper amount. If, at any time, the shipper-fork E should be moved to the extreme right of the screw F, this will carry the left side of the opening i under the pawl 7L3 and raise said pawl out of engagement with the ratchet f and stop the further rotation of the screw F.

In a similar way, therotation of the screw F is stopped, when. the shipperfork E has traveled to the extreme left. In

this case that part of the guard atthe right in either extreme position and one of the pawls resting upon the ratchet-guard at the side of the opening,a partial rotation of said ratchet-guard would not bring the other opening under the other pawl. A back-lash weight Mis hung by a strap m to a stud or screw m in the hub of the sleeve 1' and holds one side (the right side in Figs. 5-7) of the cam-groove j against the anti-friction roll 7r, at all times.

The construction shown in Figs. 10-12 differs from that above described in that the belt-shipper E is carried by or is in one with a bar E which slides longitudinally in the brackets 61, a and is provided with a rack 6 engaged by a gear-sector N, journaled in a bracket a on the frame A. A pinion 0, secured to the sector N, is engaged by another rack Z, carried by a rod L', actuated in the same manner as the rod L above named, that is, raised by an increase in the amount of fiberspassing through the gaging devices and lowered when the amount of such fibers is diminished by a weight Z which, in this case, is suspended by a strap Z over a drum Z secured to the sector N and pinion O, concentrically therewith, the raising of the rod L carrying the belt toward the larger end of the driven cone 0 and the lowering of said rod carrying said belt toward the smaller end of,

said driven cone.

The idle cylindrical pulley is used merely to give a greater contact surface between the belt and the cones.

I claim as my invention- 1. The combination of acylindrical drivingpulley, havinga uniform speed, a driven conepulley, an idle-cone pulley, all said pulleys having parallel axes and said cone pulleys tapering in opposite directions, and a belt, connecting all said pulleys, as and for the purpose specified.

2. The combination of a cylindrical drivingpulley, having a uniform speed, a cylindrical idle-pulley, a driven cone-pulley, an idle-cone pulley, all said pulleys having parallel axes and said cone-pulleys tapering in opposite directions, and a belt connecting all said pulleys, as and for the purpose specified.

3. The combination of a cylindrical drivingpulley, having a uniform speed, a straight tapered driven cone-pulley, an idle-cone pulley, having the same size and shape with said driven cone pulley, all said pulleys having parallel axes and said cone-pulleys tapering in opposite directions, and a belt, connecting all said pulleys, as and for the purpose specified.

4. The combination of acylindrical driving pulley, having a uniform speed, a cylindrical idle-pulley, a straight tapered driven conepulley, an idle-cone-pulley, having the same size and shape with said driven cone pulley, all said pulleys having parallel axes and said cone-pulleys tapering in opposite directions, and a belt connecting all said pulleys, said idle-cylindrical pulley being arranged to bring an equal amount of the surface of said belt in contact with each of said cone-pulleys, when said belt is half way between the ends of the cones as and for the purpose specified.

5. The combination of a shaft, having a screw, the shipper-fork, having a nut to engage said screw, a cam, having a groove and having an internal screw-thread to engage another screw with which said shaft is provided, a lever, provided with a stud to enter said cam-groove and rotate said cam, a ratchet, secured to said shaft, pawls, each adapted to engage said ratchet, a hollow cylindrical ratchet-guard, having openings arranged to allow only one of said pawls to engage said ratchet at the same time and secured to said cam, whereby a lateral movement of said stud will cause one of said pawls to engage said ratchet and rotate said shaft andthe rotation of said shaft will move said guard between said last-named pawl and said ratchet, as and for the purpose specified.

6. The combination of a shaft, having a screw, the shipper-fork, having a nut to engage said screw, a cam, having a groove and having an internal screw-thread to engage another screw with which said shaft is provided, a lever, provided with a stud to enter said cam-groove and rotate said cam, a ratchet, secured to said shaft, pawls, each adapted to engage said ratchet, a hollow cylindrical ratchet-guard, having openings arranged to allow only one of said pawls to engage said ratchet at the same time and secured to said cam, and a weight, arranged to retain one side of said cam-groove in contact with said stud, as and for the purpose specified.

7. The combination of a shaft, provided with two screws, a ratchet, secured to said shaft, reciprocating-pawls adapted singly to engage said ratchet, to rotate said screw, a

belt-shipper, caused to traverse by one of said screws, and a ratchet-guard operated by the other of said screws to disengage an engaged pawl from said ratchet, as and for purpose specified.

In witness whereof I have signed this specification, in the presence of two attesting witnesses, this 3d day of March, A. D. 1891.

HENRY A. DAVIS. WVitnesses:

ALBERT M. MOORE, H. O. PERHAM. 

